Page 16 of Conquer
That would be unforgivable.
* * *
I wakeup a second time to find Magda watching me from her bed, her blue eyes unreadable.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, placing my hand over one of hers.
“Better.” She shrugs, ever the stoic. “But I’m hungry.”
“Okay, honey.” Yawning, I lurch to my feet and set off in search of a nurse. By the time her breakfast is served, and the nurse has finished her morning assessment—her vitals are improving, and pending another round of bloodwork, she could be discharged as early as tomorrow—Vadim arrives, and I promptly prepare to make my exit.
“You’re leaving?” Magda watches me from over her breakfast tray, her eyes so wide that I assume she’s been perfecting this innocent expression solely for moments like this. Gosh, she’s so much like her father, but the comparison stings now more than it feels endearing.
An emotional terrorist with a devastating arsenal at her disposal.
“Yes, honey,” I say, gathering up my coat as Vadim claims the chair on the opposite end of her bed. “I’ll see you tonight.”
I hesitate beside her only to change my mind at the last second. Boundaries be damned. Leaning down, I kiss her forehead. Her fever has broken, but she still feels clammy, her skin far too pale. “Don’t have too much fun without me,” I warn, tugging on one of her curls.
On my way out, I stop by the nurses’ station and write down their number. Then I exit the hospital to find Ena waiting out front, as gruff as ever. But, as he steers the car back toward the house, he grunts in an uncharacteristic way. Then he speaks. “You no understand.”
“I’m sorry?” I reply, aiming for politeness. I’m too tired to direct my anger at anyone but Vadim.
“You no understand,” he insists, his jaw clenched as if speaking to me is an agonizing ordeal. And yet, he persists. “Mr. Vadim did not want to hurt you.” He takes his time to phrase the words carefully. “He was scared. Scared ofher.”
“Irina?” I ask, my nostrils flaring. How could something as momentous as Magda’s mother returning out of the blue go ignored until now? It just serves as a testament to the emotional roller coaster Vadim and his life have set me on. At this point, I’m no longer aware of which way is up or down. I’m trapped, along for the ride. “Magda’s mother?”
Ena nods, snorting in disgust. “She crazy. Mr. Vadim only want to protect the girl.”
Protect. It’s a strong word to use in the context of a mother seeking to reconnect with her child. One that I suspect Ena isn’t using lightly.
“Do you know her?”
He nods, and in the rearview mirror, I see his upper lip pull back from his teeth, his eyes narrowed. “I know her. She is viper. From the old days. Mr. Vadim never saw it, but Ena did.” He nods, smug. And yet there’s a hint of regret shaping his features. “She cannot have girl. He did it for her.”
Itbeing ban me from seeing Magda when she needed me the most. It as in turning the tables and yet demanding my trust. It as in shattering any hope of us ever being in a healthy relationship.
“He told you?” Ena demands. “Of the old days?”
He phrases it all so carefully that I recognize the sensitivity of the subject he’s referring to—Vadim’s past.
“Yes,” I say thickly. “He told me. He told me… That you saved his life.”
Ena’s lips twitch into a scowl. “No. That place? It was hell. And Vadim, he good at pretending. They all did.”
“Pretending?”
He shrugs, frustrated by my lack of understanding. “He was the only one to ask for help,” he adds with deliberate slowness. “The others. They pretend. He didn’t.”
I say nothing, disturbed by the picture he paints. A hellscape of abused victims too conditioned to their ordeals to show their pain. The one time Vadim did—allow himself to be vulnerable—he expected to die soon after.
But what does he expect from me?
Ena doesn’t give me any insight on that front, falling silent—though I sense he wants to say more. Maybe I should let him? About Irina and Vadim and their murky past, clouding everyone’s judgment.
Or I can seethe and wallow, and try to lick my wounds in peace.
God, I need to be angry with him. Hate him. I don’t think I’ll have anything left in me otherwise.
Once we reach the house, I grab some food from the kitchen and shower. Then I leave the master bedroom, slip on my coat, and head out onto the terrace. It’s freezing out, but I ignore the chill and curl up on a wooden-framed lounger overlooking the water. Not for the first time, I indulge in the idea of leaving. Running away. Ignoring Vadim and his fucked-up life and going back to California.
It startles me to realize how much I miss it. My old family home in the heart of wine country. My parents, whom I’ve been avoiding pretty much since my divorce out of shame. A sudden longing for home rises up so swiftly I sob silently in the face of it, and I decide on the spot to stop letting guilt and manipulation run my life.
Vadim won. He got his way to an extent—but I plan on taking my power back tenfold. He wanted me to be a mother to his daughter, then fine. But that means nothing as far asheis concerned.
And it’s best I prove that fact to us both.
Sooner rather than later.
